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Friday, November 21, 2008

Some offical information regarding the PLA reserve

First unit of reserve troops of PLA

english.chinamil.com.cn 2008-11-21

The first division of the reserve troops of the PLA was established in Jinzhou of Liaoning Province in March 1982.

Twenty-six years have elapsed since then, and what changes has this division undergone over all these years? Curious to find the answer, the reporters drove all the way to the hinterland of the Liaoxi mountainous areas in late fall. Instead of wasting time, the reporters rolled straight to the training field of a logistic support brigade of the reserve force. The brigade is the former infantry division of the reserve troops of Jinzhou.

In the training field, the brigade was holding a comprehensive support exercise in complicated electromagnetic environment, involving more than 1,000 officers and men of the reserve troops. Cui Yanfa, commander of the brigade, said, "We set more than 40 subjects in five categories in the exercise. All of them are carried out in complicated electromagnetic environment. As the first unit of reserve troops, we should be more enterprising to blaze new trails of information-based training for the reserve troops."

The Spring Festival of 1982 was hardly over when the reserve infantry division was quickly forged in accordance with the arrangement of the Central Military Commission and the general headquarters/departments of the PLA, with a group of officers in active service as the backbones, and the officers transferred to civilian work and the demobilized soldiers as the main body, thanks to the close cooperation of the military and the local authorities. On March 20 the same year, the Shenyang Military Area Command held a flag-presenting ceremony for the reserve infantry division.

By the end of 1998, the division was entrusted by the Central Military Commission with the experimental task of turning itself into a logistic support brigade of the reserve force.